Crowded Planes Mean Crowded Lots

Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport is expanding its parking lots to catch up with a booming passenger rate that has surpassed the number of available spots.

The Peninsula Airport Commission is looking for a bank to help it sell $10 million in tax-exempt bonds for a new parking garage. The airport is adding a 200-space lot that should be done this week and a 600-space lot that should be complete by the end of August.

"The airport is as successful as any in the country, and you're going to have those types of growing pains," said Newport News City Manager Ed Maroney.

Maroney was referring to the growing practice of airport passengers parking anywhere there is open real estate on the existing lot, which has 1,400 spaces. The garage would add 880 spaces on top of the 1,000 that will be added later this year.

The commission, which owns and operates the airport, plans to get bids this fall and start construction of the four-level structure in mid-January.

"We decided we didn't want to do that during the Christmas holiday," said Mark Falin, the airport's manager.

Part of the reason they want to wait is that the new parking deck would displace 280 existing spaces, which wouldn't be replaced until the garage is complete. The garage would have 650 spaces for the public and 230 for rental cars that rental companies can lease for $100 a month.

The commission expects the project to cost about $11.5 million total. The garage would give the airport more than 3,000 spaces.

The deck, which the commission plans to pay for entirely through the parking rates, would be over the lot in the upper-left-hand corner if you're facing the main terminal. The rates for the garage would be higher than the current parking rates of $1 an hour and $5 a day.

The non-garage parking rates won't change per hour, but they are expected to go up $1 a day. The parking rates haven't changed since 1992, and the existing parking lots have no debt. Most other airports charge higher rates. Norfolk's airport charges $7 a day.

The parking deck is needed because of blistering passenger growth at the airport, which posted its busiest month ever in May with almost 96,000 passengers. It set another record in June with more than 101,900 passengers.

The airport commission also bought five acres of land from the Newport News Industrial Development Authority for $450,000. The land will be used for a future parking deck when it is needed. *

RISE IN PARKING

The number of cars using the airport parking lot has grown 121 percent since 2000.